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Creating a Picture Frame Effect for Images in Microsoft Publisher

When you insert a picture into a document in Microsoft Publisher it always
appears as a boring old rectangle. This article will show you how to
insert a picture into any shape you like to create a much more interesting frame
effect.

We're going to change this hideous looking image...

...into this beautiful one!

Although the technique described here uses Microsoft Publisher to demonstrate
the principle, you'll find that you can achieve the same results in a very
similar way in most other Microsoft Office products, such as Word and
PowerPoint.

Creating the Frame Shape

The single major thing you need to understand about creating this effect is
that you can't change the frame of a picture after it's been inserted into the
document. That means you have to draw the frame first and insert the
picture into it afterwards. Your frame can be almost any of the standard
AutoShapes that are available in Publisher. To draw a
shape on the page you need to find the AutoShapes button on the
Objects toolbar. This is normally sitting at the left
hand edge of the Publisher screen.

The toolbar should be at the left edge of the
screen. If you can't see it, try selecting
View -> Toolbars -> Objects from the menu.

Once you've clicked on the type of shape you want to draw, move the mouse over
the drawing page and click and drag to draw the shape.

You can always change the size of the shape at a later stage, so don't worry about making it exactly right size.

Changing the Fill Colour of a Shape

Making our picture appear inside the shape doesn't actually involve inserting
the image, rather, we change the background colour of the shape to be our
picture. To do this, right-click the shape you have just drawn and from
the menu choose: Format AutoShape...

Make sure you're on the
Colors and Lines tab and then select the option shown here.

In the dialog box that appears, select the Picture tab.

Click the
Select Picture... button to browse for an image saved on your computer.

In the next dialog box, browse for a picture that you have saved on your
computer and double-click on it to select it.

This is a Wolf Spider taken in Goulburn, Australia in case anyone's interested.

Once you've double-clicked on the image you want to use, click OK
twice and you should find that your image now appears inside the shape you've
drawn.

All that remains is for us to apply a few formatting options to the border of the shape.

Formatting the Border of a Shape

To add a few finishing touches to the picture frame we can format the colour
and thickness of the shape's outline. To do this, select the shape and use
the options on the toolbar shown in the diagram below:

Use this option to change the line colour. Click More Outline
Colors... to see a wider selection.

Click the tool shown here to change the line thickness or weight.

With a few clicks you can completely transform the look of your frame
(although you'll probably want to choose a more tasteful colour scheme than the
one shown here).

We're not going to win any awards, but it's still better than a boring old rectangle!